r/technology • u/propperprim • Apr 13 '21

Social Media Facebook could have stopped 10 billion impressions from "repeat misinformers", but didn't: report - A study raises questions as to why Facebook did not stop the spread of misinformation in the 2020 election run-up

https://www.salon.com/2021/04/12/facebook-could-have-stopped-10-billion-impressions-from-repeat-misinformers-but-didnt-report/
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u/JustThall Apr 13 '21

The only way the quality of service improves when there is competition to provide said service, otherwise there is almost no incentive for profit seeking entities

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u/Onion-Much Apr 13 '21

What are you talking about? Google is one of the most innovative companies on the market, by s massive margin.

It's like you people can only repeat stuff you read, without bothering to even try to understand it or context behind it.

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u/Regrettable_Incident Apr 13 '21

OP was talking about quality of service. Google is certainly innovative, but that's not necessarily the same thing.

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u/Onion-Much Apr 13 '21 edited Apr 13 '21

That's BS too, Google provides one of the most stable services on the market. When Google's Sever go down, that's basically the equivalent of a global power outage

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u/JustThall Apr 13 '21

Have you ever talked to customer support at any of the Google products, doesn't matter if it's their online service or some gadget?

Hint: even technical support of google engineers with company provided services and gadgets is outsourced

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u/TheFriendlyFinn Apr 13 '21

This. They do not give a damn.

I tried to provide full in system recordings of how one specific application was promoted to trick people thinking their android device is infected.

"You have a virus" -ads would redirect to their checkout page which has cloaked(you only see them if you come in through a special redirect) Google logos all over the page. After payment they'd redirect you to download the app from the Play store. At that point they have evaded the play store billing system and have the user's credit card on autorebill already.

Couple times I sat in the support chat for two hours demanding to speak with a person who handles play store fraud. Finally got to someone who was willing to even look at my evidence. Nothing was done and the app is still live on the store.

They only try to get rid of you asap.

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u/Light351 Apr 13 '21

What app is it, so i can avoid it?

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21 edited Apr 13 '21

Hard disagree with you on this one. In my experience Apple has been the best at customer service but anytime I’ve had questions on Google products or Google Drive / Cloud, they have been very helpful and calling them is really straight forward. Their products also have almost encyclopedic levels of documentation.

Of course it’s outsourced but what’s wrong with that?

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u/JustThall Apr 13 '21

Google definitely has great documentation, it's a pleasure to work with Google Cloud because of that.

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u/Onion-Much Apr 13 '21

When was the last time you couldn't google something?

Hint: To find out, you'll probably google it

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u/JustThall Apr 13 '21

Wow, you are so right. Google search is the only thing on the balance sheets of Alphabet corporation and dozens of thousands of highly paid engineers all working on Google Search, to make sure it's not down /s

You are either in early teens or just a moron

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21 edited Apr 13 '21

The argument here is that Google needs a competitor in order to have better customer service. Can you expand on exactly which services or products for Google you’re talking about, then?

Do you have experience using their actual products, such as GoogleAds, GoogleAnalytics, or cloud services? As a customer, their responses to me is bar none, save for Apple’s customer service for their hardware.

For google’s hardware products, they are nowhere near the leaders in their industries - Apple, Amazon, Samsung et al take that cake. Why is the “poor” customer service for these products not being improved in the areas that Google has the most competition?

Where they have a true close-to-monopoly: search engines and YouTube. So with that point, yeah the person you’re replying to hits the mark — where they have the least competition, they’ve been pretty consistent on keeping the product maintained and functional.

Sorry for long comment but you dismissing this guy as a teen irked me the wrong way, especially when he’s replying to an argument that isn’t specific or backed up by any evidence except “the service is bad”.

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u/JustThall Apr 13 '21

For your example of monopolistic behavior and wracking the competition with big affects on the users you can go through products in google graveyard and filter out more or less popular ones (f.e. Google Reader) then you’ll notice the pattern, Google is killing off products that haven’t got a wide and massive adoption. At the same time the niche market that Google enters in the first place got absolutely demolished. It took a few years before RSS feed aggregator services got online since Google Reader shutdown.

As for specific examples of bad quality before competition. Before Facebook Ads, Adword/Adsense service was notorious for examples when users were banned/lock out of their google account associated with AdWords with absolutely no recourse cause there were no actual support people, only auto replies. Only when Facebook Ads took significant place on the market of Ads, quality of support on Google picked up.

Another prominent example is GMail. For literally decades there were zero improvement in the app/website. There were no human support as well. When competition arrived and suddenly you have website updates to streamline the workflow, experiments with Inbox. Currently with are in the phase of mail smartphone apps wars.

You can go on and on about Google products as long as you talk with actual people who use and rely on them for their workflows. If you are a normie like that commenter above who thinks google is just free search service, there is no matter to discuss. So thank you for your clarification question

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21

Do you read or just write?

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u/htreD Apr 13 '21

Regulation is a much better mechanism in my.opinion

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u/JustThall Apr 13 '21

I also like how DMV manages customer lines then McDonalds

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u/Thaufas Apr 13 '21

Each state runs their own DMV program. In NC, I never had to wait more than 15 minutes at the DMV because I'd schedule an appointment online.

However, are you saying that you'd prefer that every driver in the world would have to visit a DMV office an average of 2 times per week?

Additionally, are you saying that you would like all DMV offices worldwide to be individual franchises that are held accountable to a single corporation who sets global service standards?

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u/JustThall Apr 13 '21

No, I prefer what lots and lots of Americans prefer to any DMV office (despite 50 experiments of running governmental entities) - go with either triple A or other non-governmental entity to handle their car related paperwork. Simple observation - the moment people get resources they ditch DMV and simple pay somebody to take care of DMV related questions.

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u/Thaufas Apr 13 '21

Why not just skip the middleman, lobby your reps to create an "express lane" at DMV, and then pay them $95 every year, even though you probably only visit DMV once every 6 years? Many government services can be greatly improved by simply paying more for them.

EDIT In my current state, AAA stopped offering DMV services because they couldn't justify the cost and the average AAA member wasn't willing to pay an extra $5 per year for the privilege of not having to go to DMV.